Business & Dugong Conservation: An interview with two business leaders

Recently, the CMS Dugong MoU Secretariat has introduced the Dugong and Seagrass Conservation Project to two companies interested to support our conservation cause. Please meet the companies and learn more about why dugongs and seagrasses matter to them.

John Roberts, Group Director for Conservation and Sustaianability for Minor Hotel Group

Saumil Shah, Founder of EnerGaia Co Ltd.

DSCP: Please introduce yourselves.

John:

My name is John Roberts. I am the Group Director of Conservation and Sustainability for the Minor Hotel Group.

Saumil:

My name is Saumil Shah. I am the founder of EnerGaia Co Ltd. which is a sustainable environmentally focused social enterprise.

DSCP: Tell us about the respective companies you represent.

John:

Minor Hotels is one of the fastest growing hospitality businesses in the world with brands including Anantara, AVANI, Tivoli and Oaks, in addition to partnerships in Africa with Elewana Collection and also owns properties including Four Seasons and JW Marriott in Thailand. It is Bangkok based and still very much a Thai company despite the global footprint.

Saumil:

Based in Bangkok, Thailand, EnerGaia specializes in producing fresh and sustainable algae products. By focusing on making Spirulina a part of daily diets and utilizing otherwise unusable space and land to cultivate healthy food, our team is leading the way towards tackling nutritional and environmental problems that plague the cities and residents of the world.

DSCP: Is your company interested in dugongs or seagrasses?

John:

We have no direct interest except to realise that the majority of our guests travel halfway round the world to enjoy certain environments and that things like blue seas, blue skies and postcard dreams can no longer be taken for granted. They depend on ahealthy environment and that must be fought for.

Saumil:

We are primarily interested in dugongs, although we now recognize the importance of seagrasses in the near-coastal ecosystems of the dugongs thanks to the education provided by the CMS Dugong MoU Secretariat and the Dugong and Seagrass Conservation Project.

DSCP: Why is your company interested in dugong/ seagrass conservation?

John:

By focusing on dugongs we can harness guest interest in helping preserve seagrass beds. By preserving seagrass beds we not only help the dugongs but local communities for whom they are the nursery for their fishing based livelihoods. They also provide tours into their environment in the hope of spotting marine mammals which is a less extractive method of making a living. Furthermore this protects large carbon sinks.

Saumil:

We feel that conserving endangered species such as dugongs is vital to maintain a healthy and diverse ecosystem for our planet. It is also the humane thing to do. We would therefore like to support sustainable lifestyles, such as by providing alternative livelihoods, to accomplish this conservation objective.

DSCP: What are you doing to support dugong / seagrasses?

John:

We’re just getting started! For years our CSR Manager Mark Isenstadt in Trang, Thailand, based at Anantara Sikao, has developed links with the local communities in dugong and seagrass zones. He has taken time to learn their problems and how they work, and helped set up and run community based activities including seagrass planting and monitoring, and dugong spotting trips. With the help of Dugong MOU of UN Environment, local Thai NGO’s and Authorities as well as other international advice (and a donation from L’Officiel Magazine in Thailand) we are setting up a Dugong Education and Conservation Centre. We hope this centre will be a focus for research into all things Dugong and Seagrass related; a focal point for the local communities in order to decide, under the best advice, how to best harness the possibilities of income from tourism without destroying the ecosystems or disturbing the mammals. It would also be a place to educate the visiting public.

Saumil:

We have developed a contract farming model leveraging our low-cost, closed system for Spirulina production which we are using to provide alternative livelihoods in the coastal fishing communities to focus for dugong and seagrass conservation. By providing an alternative livelihood, we hope to see a decrease in the destruction of seagrass and the bycatch of dugong from current overfishing practices that are necessary by these coastal communities to meet their own basic needs for survival.

DSCP: What would you like to achieve by joining a Dugong and Seagrass Partnership?

John:

By joining the Partnership we hope to gain as much advice as possible to ensure we get it right at Anantara Sikao and with our local communities in protecting what is probably South East Asia’s most significant dugong population and, in return, we hope we can use our resources in Sikao but also in Bazaruto, Mozambique and Abu Dhabi to protect the dugongs and seagrass providing equally important biological services in those eco-systems.

Saumil:

We would like to accelerate and amplify our activities by sharing our resources and connections, such as local NGO partners that the dugong and seagrass conservation partnership currently work with, to accomplish our common goals.

DSCP: What is your 2018 wish to the Dugong and Seagrass Conservation Project and its Partners?

John:

A happy and sustainably productive new year! In my professional life, as an elephant conservationist, we have been successful in balancing tourism, corporate sponsorship, scientific research and community goodwill to move the conversation forward for the benefit of all. I’d love to be able to help in something similar for dugongs and seagrass.

The Dugong and Seagrass Conservation Project wishes to thank these two executives for the contributions to the project and to conservation more broadly. Its work like this that will help dugong and seagrass conservation globally.